


Seen

by Ferith12



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Eugenides is kind of a creeper, F/M, How Gen Fell in Love, Sort Of, The love story of two lonely people who hide a lot, Two instances where Gen saw Irene, but it's his job so it's okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 18:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferith12/pseuds/Ferith12
Summary: The first time he saw her he was seven years old.





	Seen

The first time he saw her he was seven years old.

Thieves didn't cry, especially not where anyone could see.  Little boys with cruel cousins never cried where people could see.

He was seven and his mother was dead and had had his first real screaming match with his father and ran away to Attolia with his grandfather.  He was seven and his mother had just died, and he had gotten lost only half on purpose to cry softly in the trees of the royal gardens.

It was fall, winter already in Eddis, and the night breeze was cool in a comfortable way, and the sky was clear and full of stars.

And he saw her.

He will never know what made him notice her before she heard him, her bare feet silent on the grass.  She seemed very old and grown up to him at the time, but he watched her carefully with thieve's eyes, and she seemed small, too.   Small and sad and very, very alone.  Like an echo, hopelessly calling into nothingness.

Then she looked up at the stars.  She spun in a circle all by herself with her pale shadow dress flowing out around her and she smiled.  And to Gen looking down, it was like the sorrow itself was smiling.  Light was in her eyes, in the shadow of her, reflecting the lights in the darkness of sky.  Her happiness for that brief moment was beautiful, and it made him feel that maybe, maybe, everything would be all right.

 

The second time he saw her was in her bed chamber.

He had looked at her before, of course.  Had seen the masks she wore and the cruel coldness of her queenship.   He had seen her beauty but not cared for it.  Anyone could be beautiful if they cared to be, and had maidservants who knew what suited them and spent sufficient effort on it.  More than half of Eddis's problem was simply that she felt like she was playing dress-up whenever she wore finery.

Everything about Attolia's presence was calculated to inspire awe.  Eugenides was awed by no one.  He hated all that she stood for in her coldness and power and unreality, hollowness and stone.  So he looked at her, upon her throne, standing with poise and deadly command.  He looked at her but did not see her, because she did not allow anyone to see.

He saw her in her bed chamber.  She sat in front of the mirror, her attendants all around her, hair down, face unpainted, and cold and expressionless and as ever, even here with no one but her most trusted attendants to see.  She is emptiness he thought, scornfully, this is all she is.

But then he remembered the girl in the garden, smiling at the stars, and he saw her.

She is alone, he thought, alone and sorrowful and afraid, and trusts no one.  She has encased herself in a mask of ice, which she will not allow to melt, even in her own bed chamber.

And he realizes, looking down on her, alone, that he would like nothing more than to make sorrow smile.


End file.
